


more than words

by orphan_account



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6338617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You haven’t changed at all,” Kido had told him, viciously angry. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>A collection of "things you said" prompts, featuring Kagepro characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	more than words

  **things you said when you were scared - harushin**

 

All Shintaro can think is,  _ the hospital is too bright _ . The glare of the lights above him feel almost like eyes, boring into the back of his neck as he sits in the waiting room. He slides his thumb across his phone absently, not really looking at anything. Even the glow of his own screen seems harsh. His eyes prickle.

 

Visiting hours have already started. Shintaro knows the time by heart, so there’s no real reason for him to still be here, curled up in a chair with the hard plastic digging into his back. He just doesn’t want to face Haruka yet.

 

Haruka’s family had called him yesterday, and Shintaro had spoken to a doctor in person this morning. Haruka’s last operation had left him weak, and his body had stopped responding to the medicines that had kept his illness at bay before. At this rate, he isn’t going to last much longer. Weeks, or months, it’s difficult to tell, but no one expects Haruka to live past spring.

 

Shintaro presses his thumb over the ‘hold’ button of his phone and shoves it into his pocket. When he shuffles his way to the front desk, the woman there only nods at him. She’s seen him here enough before to know who he is, where he’s going.

 

When Shintaro reaches the open door to Haruka’s room, he hesitates for a moment. Entering the room will make this real. Shintaro won’t be able to fool himself into thinking he can escape this reality anymore. 

 

But there was nowhere to escape to in the first place. His place is here, beside Haruka. Especially now. He pushes the door open a little wider and steps inside. 

 

Haruka is sitting up in bed, a notebook open in his lap. The TV across from the bed is on, but silent. The only sound in the room is the scratching of pencil on paper. 

 

Haruka doesn’t look up when Shintaro takes a seat behind him. His eyes stay glued to the paper before him, where he’s sketching a cherry blossom tree in full bloom. There are smudges on the paper, as though he’s erased bits of it too many times. 

 

Shintaro tries to think of something to say, but everything he comes up with sounds false. He stays silent and watches Haruka draw instead. There’s something comforting about watching Haruka’s pencil move across the paper. It’s a familiar scene, and Shintaro thinks of happier times they spent in this same room, of Haruka laughing while drawing something or other.

 

Shintaro knows he has to say something. But there are so many thoughts crowding his head, shouting at him. He wants to say,  _ I’m sorry.  _ He wants to say,  _ Don’t go, please, don’t leave me.  _ He wants to say,  _ Thank you.  _ But the words stick in his throat, choking him before he can speak.

 

He’s terrified of saying the wrong thing, of making Haruka feel worse. And deeper than that, he’s afraid to face what he’s been running from all along. 

 

Even now, he thinks,  _ You idiot. It’s too late. Too late for anything.  _

 

Haruka’s pencil comes to stop. 

 

Shintaro looks up, and realizes that Haruka’s hands, now unoccupied, are shaking. Shintaro swallows his words, pushes back his thoughts, and reaches for him. 

 

They stay like that for a long time, Shintaro’s arms wrapped around Haruka’s torso, his head half resting on Haruka’s shoulder. Neither of them say anything.

 

Shintaro had always been a coward.

 

* * *

 

 

**t** **hings you said that i wish you hadn’t - harushin**

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” Haruka said. They were sitting on the couch, in the late afternoon. Sunlight was streaming through the curtains of the apartment, and the TV was a low hum in the background. Haruka was curled around a sketchbook, and Shintaro had his computer open in front of him, lighting his face with a soft glow.  It had been an ordinary Saturday, by all accounts.

 

Shintaro looked up, fingers frozen on the keyboard. “What did you say?” he asked, as though he hadn’t heard. 

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” Haruka repeated. He put the sketchbook down on his lap, where Shintaro could see from his place on the other end of the couch. 

 

The page was covered in dark scribbles, half formed sketches of what looked like Haruka and Shintaro himself, their faces crossed out over and over. 

 

“It looks okay to me,” Shintaro said, squinting to see the lines of his own face staring back at him from beneath the snarls of ink. 

 

“That’s not what I meant,” Haruka looked at him, eyes dark. “I just… What happened to us?” Shintaro couldn’t read his expression; the setting sun cast shadows over Haruka’s face strangely. 

 

“What do you mean?” Shintaro asked. His fingers itched to keep typing, to turn back to the computer and pretend none of this was happening. 

 

Haruka threw the sketchbook to the side, drawing his knees to his chest. “You haven’t said a word to me all day,” he said, so quietly that it was almost a whisper. The light glowed around him, framing him in a window of fiery, sunset colors. 

 

“Of course I have,” Shintaro answered mechanically, trying to remember. He had gotten up at around noon, and eaten something from the kitchen, probably last night’s leftovers. Then he had dressed and brushed his teeth, and settled down with his computer. Had he spoken to Haruka? He couldn’t remember.

 

Haruka watched him. “You didn’t,” he said quietly. He didn’t sound upset, or even disappointed. “I didn’t say anything to you, either,”

 

“Huh,” Shintaro picked at the S key, pressing it absently and watching the letter scroll across the screen. What was there to say? Everything felt foggy, indistinct. He was worried about what Haruka was saying, but  even that seemed far away, muted. 

 

“It’s like we don’t even live in the same house,” Haruka said, as the sun burned orange through the room, rays of light like flames creeping across the floor. “I can’t--I can’t keep waiting,” 

 

Shintaro forced his mouth to move, forced his lips to form words. “Waiting?” he asked, and willed his voice not to shake.

 

“Waiting for you to realize,” Haruka’s eyes met his, as the sunset faded into shades of blue. The dying light flickered, like the last gasps of a dying fire. “She’s not coming back,”

 

Shintaro’s throat felt dry, as though there really was a fire, sucking the breath from his lungs. “I never thought so,” he said, but he couldn’t look at Haruka.

 

It had been years since Haruka and Takane had gotten their bodies back, since they had ended the daze and stopped Kuroha. 

 

But Ayano hadn’t come back. 

 

She couldn’t be dead. Takane had been dead, Haruka had been dead, but they were fine now, right? Ayano would come back. Shintaro had to believe that. He would get his happy ending, just like everyone else. Otherwise… what would he do?

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” said Haruka again, quietly. “It’s like I’m not even here, Shintaro. It’s like all you see is  _ her _ ,” 

 

Shintaro looked at him, lit up in madder red, and for a moment he saw Ayano, looking back at him through Haruka’s eyes. 

 

Shintaro almost smiled, but he kept his face impassive when he answered. 

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and turned back to his computer.   
  


* * *

 

**things you said that made me feel like shit - kano**

 

Kido is sitting across from Kano with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, her whole body tensed as though she’s expecting an explosion. Her eyes are fixed on the polished wood table between them, and her lips are tight, pinched. It’s a familiar expression. Kano has seen her wear it every time she’s genuinely disappointed or angry with him. Instead of lashing out like she does when it’s something silly, she goes blank. Her whole body puts up walls, shutting him out as effectively as slamming the door in his face. 

They had been arguing, as usual, and then Kido had said  _ that,  _ and Kano had turned and stormed out of the apartment without looking back. They had kept up four days of radio silence until Momo had finally insisted they talk it out. In the end she had had to force them into the same apartment and leave them there alone. 

 

It’s been six minutes and neither of them have said a word. Kano’s staring at the clock on the wall, far above Kido’s head, as time ticks by quietly.

 

_ “You haven’t changed at all,”  _ Kido had told him, viciously angry.

 

And that hurts, maybe more than anything else Kido could have said to him. As if, unlike the rest of them, he’s still stuck a selfish, lying brat. He doesn’t need to read minds to know that’s what he used to be. 

 

And Kido has seen him at his worst—from the mean-spirited kid he’d been when they first met, to the grief-stricken wreck that had almost gotten them all killed. She would know better than anyone whether he’s changed or not.

 

He’s not angry because Kido was wrong. He’s angry because he knows she’s right.  


 

 

* * *

 

 

**things you said when you were scared - kuroshin**

 

It’s the first time in months that Shintaro has come downstairs to find Kuroha curled up on the couch instead of Haruka. He can only tell it’s Kuroha because he’s slowly tearing apart one of Konoha’s dinosaur plushes with a table knife. The stuffing littered on the ground looks like fluffy white clouds, and Kuroha is still wearing Haruka’s pajamas, with the bright green polka dots on them. It doesn’t make for a very threatening image.

 

Kuroha doesn’t even look up as Shintaro plops himself beside him. Once, he would have run for Ayano or Takane, terrified by the thought of a knife in Kuroha’s hands. But they stopped keeping big knives in the house ages ago, and Kuroha hasn’t really tried to hurt any of them in a very long time, not even when he’d been around.

 

“Morning,” Shintaro says, with a calmness he doesn’t quite feel. Kuroha may not be  _ dangerous  _ anymore, but he is unpredictable, and he has a temper. Also, Kuroha makes his heart pound for other reasons. Unhealthy reasons.

 

“What do you want,” Kuroha says flatly, tearing a chunk of stuffing out of the poor stuffed animal. 

 

Shintaro shrugs. “I live here,” he answers, watching as Kuroha rips apart another seam. 

 

Kuroha looks at him, deadpan, and then goes back to taking apart the dinosaur. “Fascinating. Why don’t you crawl back to the disgusting hole you came out of?” 

 

“My bed is not a disgusting hole,” Shintaro says, actually offended. “I washed the sheets last week,” Ayano had pestered him about it all Saturday until finally he’d given up and done it. It had been quite a challenge.

 

“Whatever,” Kuroha mutters, not looking at him. “Just go away,”

 

Shintaro raises his eyebrows. “That’s it? No threats of bodily harm? No horrible attempts at seduction? Or homicide?” This is a drastic turn from the last time Kuroha had visited, where he had vividly described examining Shintaro’s intestines. Takane had had to leave the room, whereas Shintaro had been horribly, horribly turned out. 

 

Kuroha sneers. “I can’t keep you entertained forever, you pathetic excuse for a human,” he says, and tears the dinosaur’s head off. He cradles it in one hand, then idly tosses it to the floor with it’s other remains. “I’m going to disappear soon,”

 

This last part is so quiet that Shintaro almost doesn’t hear it.

 

“Yeah,” Shintaro says. It figures. Kuroha has been appearing less and less, which is supposed to be a good thing, which probably  _ is  _ a good thing to everyone else. Except, well. He’s going to miss Kuroha, in a weird kind of way. Partly because of how well Kuroha had indulged the worst parts of him, but also because over the years Shintaro has come to see Kuroha as less like a monster and more like a really weird, surprise guest. 

 

“That’s all you have to say?” Kuroha says, with a hint of his old superiority. “You really don’t have anything in that skull of yours, do you?”

 

Shintaro shrugs. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

 

Kuroha drops the toy, and twists to face Shintaro fully. “You’re  _ sorry _ ?” he snarls. He moves closer, sinuous, like a snake. 

 

Shintaro scoots back a few inches. “I don’t know what else to say,” he admits. “I’m…”

 

Kuroha cuts him off with fingers around his neck. Shintaro should have been expecting this, but somehow it still comes as a shock.

 

“You’re sorry. Sorry that I’m going to die,” Kuroha’s eyes are a vivid shade of yellow, staring down at him. “When I would have killed you a thousand times over. I still  _ want _ to,” 

 

The fingers around Shintaro’s neck aren’t tight enough to stop him from breathing, or even speaking. But he stays silent and still under Kuroha’s grasp.

 

“I’m going to die,” Kuroha repeats, and his tone is biting, vicious. “And I don’t even get to choose how,”

 

“Yeah,” Shintaro says. “That’s why I’m sorry,”

 

Kuroha’s mouth twists into a smile. It’s not a happy one. “You’re just as stupid as always,” he mutters, and pulls his hands back. Shintaro can see that his fingers are shaking.

 

“I’ll kind of miss being afraid for my life every time we have a conversation,” Shintaro says, trying to keep the tone casual. 

 

Kuroha smirks at him. “You have far less to fear from me than you think,” he says. “What I can do to you is nothing, compared to my counterparts,”

 

That’s true. Shintaro expects violence and loathing from Kuroha. On the other hand, if Haruka stabbed a knife into his gut, called him worthless, something inside Shintaro would break. Even the thought of it leaves him shaken. 

 

But he pulls himself together, and fixes Kuroha with a level gaze, refusing to look away even when Kuroha’s expression clouds with anger. 

 

“You won’t forget me that easily, Shintaro Kisaragi,” Kuroha says, and it sounds almost like a question, rather than the order Kuroha surely intended it to be.

 

Shintaro watches, silent, as Kuroha’s eyes darken to the almost-black of Haruka’s, and the harsh lines of his expression soften into Haruka’s peaceful smile. 

 

It’s as though Kuroha was never there at all.

  
  
  
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> these were written over quite a few months, so there might be some differences in style. they're ordered in the reverse order in which i wrote them. also, please feel free to send in prompts of your own from [here](http://illumi.god.jp/private/141454814534/tumblr_njfkj4F82u1rewfyy)!


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